


Darkness

by Zoi no miko (zoi_no_miko)



Category: Flatliners (1990), Lost Boys (1987)
Genre: Angst, Doppelcest, Doppelganger, F/M, M/M, Multi, Unrequited Love, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-19
Updated: 2013-01-19
Packaged: 2017-11-26 03:10:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/645899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoi_no_miko/pseuds/Zoi%20no%20miko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>David poses a tempting solution to Nelson's problems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Darkness

Nelson used to walk through the church hall nearly every day on his way to school, just to see the work being done, to see the dank and dingy slowly wiped away as the restorations progressed. He hadn't been able to do it since that last night. Since the last experiment. There was too much caught up in that room, and even a glance at the doors brought it rushing back - elation and fear and anger and jealousy and hope and joy - sending a surge of adrenaline through his veins. There was a trembling feeling in the pit of his stomach that felt all too much like the beginnings of the visions he'd had, and it was too much to handle.

Nelson wasn't completely certain what had finally brought him back on that particular night other than the fact that with no classes over spring break he had nothing to distract him from his thoughts. Even volunteering for shifts at the hospital couldn't completely occupy his time. So he found himself walking, smoking far too much, and eventually his feet brought him there.

For a time he stood by the phone booth and stared up at the curves and angles of carved stone. There was a magnificence to the building that had always awoken a shiver of awe inside him; it was, perhaps, a good part of the reason why he'd felt confident enough to go under the first time. If there was a place where god touched the earth, where man could find the answers to life and the afterlife... it would be some place like this, wouldn't it?

Then again, he wasn't even certain he believed in God anymore.

Nelson flicked away the butt of his cigarette and started inside. He didn't need any more light than what spilled through the windows from the streetlights outside. He could travel these hallways blindfolded, he was sure. The familiarity of the place calmed him a little, but anxiety still churned in the pit of his stomach. So much to think about, so much running through his head, agonizing, the same thoughts over and over.

When he entered the hall, he stopped short. There was a figure standing in the middle of the room by the grating where they'd always put the bed, his back to the door. Nelson could see hair so blond it seemed almost white against the figure's long dark coat. He felt strangely violated to see someone else here, though he knew it was silly. The building wasn't exactly locked, and it didn't belong to him - he was trespassing, same as this other man. For a moment he considered leaving, but just as he'd taken a step backwards the man spoke.

"If you leave now you won't find the answers that you're looking for, Nelson."

He froze. "Do I know you?"

"In a way." He half turned towards Nelson, features still mostly obscured by shadow. "You've seen me out of the corner of your eye as you turn the corner to your apartment, you've seen me standing in the doorway of a coffee shop. You've seen me from the window of your friend's truck. But you haven't realized that it was me. We're very good at going unnoticed when we want to."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

The man chuckled, voice low and throaty, turning and raising his head to meet Nelson's gaze. "You do know me, Nelson. Don't you?"

Nelson's throat went dry, and all he could do was stare. He knew this face, yes. He'd never seen this man before, but he saw this face every time he looked in a mirror.

"The resemblance is uncanny, isn't it?" Even his voice was the same, the height, the way his lips curled in a smirk. He was paler, though, his hair much lighter, cut in a punk kind of fauxhawk that Nelson hadn't sported since the rebellious phase in his teens. And his eyes: instead of the deep blue-green that Nelson normally saw looking back at him, this man's eyes were icy blue. "Don't ask me how or why, I've never had it happen to me personally before now, but I've known others. My maker thought it was just a matter of chance, of math. Like there's only a finite number of possibilities in appearance, certain combinations of features and colouring that after millions of human births are bound to repeat themselves." He gave a little shrug and stepped closer, one hand sheathed in a black leather bike glove coming up to cup the side of Nelson's face. "But he was always such a stick in the mud. Everything has meaning, Nelson. You know that as well as I."

His words were strangely enthralling, and Nelson felt like he couldn't quite think clearly until the man had finished speaking. Then he yanked back from the touch. As strange, as unexplainable as this was, the man had no right to be so familiar with him. "Look, I don't know who the hell you are or what you think you're doing - "

"Is the baby yours, or Mr. Labraccio's?"

Nelson froze, his heart stopping for a moment before resuming beating twice as fast. "What do you know about that? How the hell do you - "

"Is it yours, or Mr. Labbracio's?" The man arched one blond eyebrow, a smile playing about the corners of his mouth. "Don't tell me you don't know. You do know, or else you wouldn't be here feeling so much _angst_. So. Tell me."

Nelson turned away with a frown, folding his arms across his chest. It was still cold, even being Easter, but he'd started wearing his trenchcoat again in a stubborn hatred of the god-ugly brightly coloured ski wear that had popped up all over town. He didn't want to answer, but the churn of despair in the base of his stomach forced the words from his mouth before he could stop himself. "It's mine. I was the one stupid enough not to wear a condom." He shook his head. "I didn't plan - I didn't want to fuck her."

"But you had to better Mr. Labraccio, didn't you?"

Nelson gave a sharp shake of his head, anger welling hot. "Fuck you. I was only with her because I wanted him. I don't fucking care about Rachel. I just wanted Dave."

"And he only wants her." The man's voice was smooth and soft, and carried a hint of sympathy with it.

Nelson shivered and shut his eyes as if it could make this confusion go away. "Who are you, the ghost of Easter past come to show me the error of my ways? I've already been through that once. Why the hell are you here, anyway? Why have you been watching me?"

He didn't hear the man step closer, but he felt a hand on his arm, strong and solid. "I'm here because we're the same, you and I. You made me curious about you, Nelson. I wanted to learn about everything you've been through. I wanted to watch you. I know all about the experiments. I watched you struggle through them. I watched you win. And now I'm here to offer you a way out."

Nelson kept his eyes closed, listening to the man speak. He should feel - he wanted to feel - indignant, violated, but somehow all he felt was a dizzy sense of relief. "I'm listening."

The man's hand smoothed from his arm to rest on his back as he pressed closer, words a soft caress of breath against Nelson's jaw. "I know you went to bed with them because she wanted you and you wanted him. I know the way your heart aches every time he kisses her instead of you. I know she's the one back home with him for Easter dinner, meeting his parents, going to mass. And you're here, alone."

It was true. Dave had asked him to come, but he could tell the invitation was only a pleasantry. Perhaps he would have agreed under other circumstances. But the invitation came scant hours after Rachel had tearfully shown him the results of the pregnancy test, asked him what to do. What to do. "Dave invited me. But I couldn't think about anything other than the baby... I don't know what to do."

"Your love for him is beautiful," the man said softly, not pulling away from him, and the touch on his back became more like an embrace that Nelson didn't fight off. "So beautiful and so painful. I know it well. I had a little bitch once who was very much like your Rachel. She caused just as much trouble to me. But you love your David, so you won't hurt him, and you won't hurt her."

"I don't see how you can have a way out of this," Nelson remarked with a hard, broken laugh.

"It's easy." The man's lips brushed against the corner of his jaw, the short, hint of a beard rough against his skin. "Let me take you away from all of this. If you leave, she will turn to him in sorrow, love him as much as she loves you. And he will love the child in honor of you. You will be a cherished memory to both of them."

"I don't see how me packing up and running off like some deadbeat - "

"I said nothing about packing and moving." The man nuzzled along his ear, then moved to draw a slow, wet line with the tip of his tongue up the side of Nelson's throat. "I mean leave. Disappear forever, without a trace. As if you had died. Let them realize with your loss what they have lost, how much they really loved you. How much he loves you."

Nelson stayed frozen at the words, the tease of his tongue, and the more this man spoke the more every inch of his being ached with love and with despair. "How does that make things any better for me?"

For a long moment the man was silent, and his breath trailed cool and soft against Nelson's skin. "It allows you to choose how things will end. To make yourself strong, to avoid the inevitable pain and bitter fallout when the things between the three of you end as you know they will. It allows you to choose to leave, as I once did. To choose to make your existence greater than anything you could have ever imagined."

The thought of it was suddenly more appealing than Nelson had ever thought possible, regardless of the twist of agony in his heart at the thought of losing Dave. "I don't understand how you could give something like that to me."

"Let me show you," murmured the man who shared his face, lips brushing his throat. Then with a shock of heat, pain, agony, he bit down hard at Nelson's throat, teeth tearing through his skin. For a moment Nelson cried out at the pain, at the rush of fear, and a tiny corner of his mind cataloged this injury as unsurvivable - this man had torn through his carotid artery, he'd bleed out in moments. But as quickly as the pain came it was gone, replaced by a sleepy warmth and well being, by a stirring of desire.

David, came the knowledge. His doppelganger's name.

How fitting.

Vampire, came the next realization. He wouldn't have believed it any other way, but he could feel David now, he could understand. Know. He could see through David's eyes, see the Vampire that was his maker, the decades that he'd lived through. Then he saw two figures: Dave and Rachel, he thought with a rush of anguish. But no... these two were different. The man was younger, his long hair darker, he was broader, shorter than Dave. And the girl with her thick gypsy curls was far more wild than Rachel. But it didn't matter. David's love for this boy echoed the overwhelming ache Nelson felt whenever Dave smiled at him, the elation and desire he'd felt the first time he'd leaned across Rachel in the bedroom to claim Dave's mouth with his own. But like Dave, this boy only had eyes for the gypsy girl. And so David left, let them believe in his death.

Freed himself.

David pulled back with a soft, pleased hum, tongue swiping against skin that was somehow completely unbroken. Then his lips pressed to Nelson's, warm and yearning, stoking the stirring of desire he'd felt to full-blown need until Nelson's fingers were tangled in the back of his trenchcoat, until he was gasping for breath against David's mouth.

David pulled back, pupils blown wide in the dim light. "You understand now."

Nelson nodded slowly, wondering a little at how real this was, how easily his mind had accepted the knowledge. But what choice did he have? He couldn't deny this any more than he could deny what he'd seen during his brushes with death. "David."

"Yes. A little ironic for you, I realize. Though I assure you I've had the name far longer than he has." David was smirking again, strangely endearing, and he reached up to run his fingertips over Nelson's cheek. "Do you know what I'm offering you?"

"I can become like you."

"Yes. Or you can choose death, if you wish. But my way's much more fun. We are too alike for me to resist the love I feel for you, Nelson. Be my companion and I will make you forget all about this. Unless you enjoyed your brushes with death so much?"

Nelson shook his head. "No. I've seen enough. I don't want to understand death anymore. I don't want to taste death again." He didn't have to think to answer. "Take me away from this. Teach me to be like you."

"Good," David replied, eyes dark and glittering. He leaned in to press his lips to Nelson's once more, nipping lightly at his bottom lip before pulling away completely, stepping backwards towards the door. He extended a hand towards Nelson, holding his gaze. "Come with me, then. Let me show you how beautiful darkness can be."

~~~


End file.
